The Europeans were obviously the oppressive people back then. They were the colonizes and, as it often goes when you have a dominant culture, elements of the local culture were either forbidden, set aside, or just avoided in order to the Europeans to feel more accommodated in the colonies. It was not uncommon for Europeans to think that other cultures were uncivilized or barbaric when most of the times, they were just different. Sometimes, superior to European culture in some aspects, even.
